Escape with Accounting

Barry’s brain, usually a meticulously organized ledger of debits and credits, was currently experiencing a catastrophic system error. He was standing in the middle of a deserted industrial park, the air thick with the scent of stale oil and the faint, lingering perfume of what Barry could only describe as “interstellar eau de glitter.” Beside him, the disco ball ship, which he’d affectionately (and perhaps delusionally) nicknamed “Sparkle Motion,” hummed with a nervous energy that mirrored his own. Gay, a shimmering, iridescent being who communicated better with a sequined shimmy than a spoken word, was frantically poking at a panel that looked suspiciously like it was held together with duct tape and wishful thinking.

“It’s no use, Barry!” Gay chirped, his voice a melodic cascade of chimes. He punctuated this despair with a dramatic flourish that sent a cascade of tiny, shimmering particles raining down on Barry’s sensible slacks. “Zorp is going to catch me. My vacation is officially over. And it wasn’t even that *vacationy*.”

Barry adjusted his glasses, a familiar gesture of calm in the face of overwhelming chaos. He’d spent the last few days explaining the concept of “flat rate” versus “progressive taxation” to a being who seemed to think accounting was a competitive interpretive dance. He’d also witnessed Gay’s valiant, yet utterly futile, attempts to repair Sparkle Motion, which mostly involved applying more glitter to various malfunctioning components. The ship, Barry had observed, seemed to react to Gay’s emotional state. When Gay was optimistic, it sputtered. When he was despondent, it emitted a mournful, wobbly hum.